


he brought with him the summer

by MisPronounce_and_MisAccent



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, First Kiss, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, I Write Tropes What About It, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pining, Pre-Canon, and also, because they sort shit out pre-tour, yeah i used those tags last time too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 02:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20350828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent/pseuds/MisPronounce_and_MisAccent
Summary: It started, as so many beautiful yet intangible things do, with a bottle of wine and the heady warmth of a summer evening. It started with the waning moon and the stars only half-shadowed by England’s overcast. It started with Percy’s hand on his knee, with a bubble of laughter. With the grass dewey and blue-green in the dark of the night, expanding ever outward as if radiating from where they sat...In which they kiss a summer earlier.





	he brought with him the summer

_It started, as so many beautiful yet intangible things do, with a bottle of wine and the heady warmth of a summer evening. It started with the waning moon and the stars only half-shadowed by England’s overcast. It started with Percy’s hand on his knee, with a bubble of laughter. With the grass dewey and blue-green in the dark of the night, expanding ever outward as if radiating from where they sat— _

_It started, of course, long before then. It started sometime nebulous, in the foggy grey-area between childhood friendship and pining adolescence that Monty had never managed to pin down. It started when he fell in love with Percy, but there was no set date for that. Love for Percy had filled him up, illuminated him from within, like light spreading through the sky at sunrise. But Monty was never awake before the sun had climbed halfway to its zenith, and how was he supposed to know when those first rays of light crept in through the darkness?— _

_So it was easier, in the end, to say when the trouble started._

* * *

Percy pulled away from him with a start, just inches, just so the space between them was still hot with their combined breath. He pulled away and put his hands on Monty’s chest, lightly pushing him back. Percy pulled away and put his hands on Monty’s chest and asked, breathless between them, “Monty, wait, did that— does this mean anything?”

“Yes,” Monty said, cast truthful in the moonlight. Percy’s eyes widened and his mouth was halfway to forming a word by the time Monty caught himself, “No! I mean, no? Not— It doesn’t _have_ to mean anything.”

Percy looked askance. Monty could still feel his breath, hotter, even, than the summer air, and he got so caught up in its steady rhythm that he didn’t notice Percy’s hand curling around the back of his neck. Didn’t notice until Percy murmured, “Alright,” tilted Monty’s chin up, and kissed him again.

But he was Monty, who had always wanted too much. Who wanted the truth from Percy (really, only if that truth aligned with what he wanted to hear), even when he wasn’t willing to give Percy the same. He was Monty, who ached with longing like the breeze twisting in old branches until they cried out around them, who had to break away, had to ask, “Does this— does it mean anything to you?”

“Things like this don’t need to mean anything,” Percy said, and with the dark concealing his features, Monty had no way of knowing if it was true. But Percy’s breath was warmer than the air, his eyes darker than the space between the stars, and all the wine had been drained from the bottle but its flavor lingered on the corners of his mouth.

It would be easy for them to write this off, a tipsy summer evening’s folly with no follow-up, to leave it behind in memories and the backyard of the summerhouse, to pretend that this wasn’t all Monty had wanted since that sunlight first filled the hollow of his chest, so long ago. Percy was right, these things didn’t need to mean anything. And Monty would be a fool to say no to everything he wanted.

“Alright,” he said, an echo of Percy, and leaned back into him.

Well, almost everything.

* * *

_It didn’t mean anything._

_It didn’t mean anything, just as Percy said, and Monty reminded himself of that over and over in the following weeks._

_Because it didn’t go as Monty predicted. Monty had fully expected it to be a night they’d leave in memory, a new ache when he looked at Percy, a scene to replay in his mind as he traced the line of his lips late at night. Something that happened once, and never again. _

_But it did happen again._

_And again._

_And they didn’t talk about. At first they were aided by alcohol and late nights, and forced to endure awkward mornings and pretending they didn’t remember a thing. But as mid-July drifted away into August, they got over themselves; they kissed sober, on nights they were alone enough to do so. And, though they didn’t talk about it, they stopped the childish pretense that it didn’t happen._

_But the feeling of it all, the tone, that didn’t change. It was still always a fast-paced thing, rough around the edges and never veering too close to romantic. It _wasn’t _romantic. It wasn’t love, what they were doing, and Monty knew that. It was sex. It was open-mouthed kisses and wandering hands and tangled sheets turned cold by the time Monty woke up, alone._

_He always _

* * *

woke up alone.

“You’re up early,” he heard from the other end of the room. Percy was wide awake on the couch, fully dressed in the wrinkled clothes of a day prior, perfectly composed as those pieces he liked to write. Embarrassment tied up Monty’s stomach; he’d been left there, half-naked and half-awake in bed while Percy was outfitted and aware and acting like he hadn’t spent the previous evening with his hands and mouth hot on Monty’s skin. But not that that was new. Not that he’d expected otherwise.

“When you’ve a face like this, darling, you can skip a few hours of beauty sleep.” He found the shirt that had made home on the carpet and threw it on, buttoning up the front, and pulled on the neighboring trousers. “But you would know that, up early as you are.”

Percy rolled his eyes and moved to the next cushion so Monty could sit beside him. “Then I must be the most naturally gorgeous of God’s creations,” he deadpanned. “Because I hardly got a wink last night.”

“Should’ve woken me,” Monty murmured, leaning in close and smiling in that way he’d heard described as ‘catlike’. “I would’ve kept you company.”

“You would’ve been the opposite of help.”

“It would’ve been fun, though.” He tilted his head in the rest of the way, only half disappointed when his lips met nothing but air. He looked up to see Percy, head turned perpendicular to where it had just been, not looking at Monty. 

Which was fine.

If Percy didn’t want to kiss him in the light of day, that was his choice. Things were more real in sunlight, without the dark cover of night to conceal flaws and make what was defined foggy and distorted. And, Percy had made perfectly clear, this was not real. Monty was the one toeing the line, pushing past what Percy was willing to give him.

But he could do it. He could keep Percy at arm’s length during the day, not kiss him until the moon was high and bright. He could write off flirting as a joke, bite his lip ‘till it bled to keep from uttering three pointless words. He could laugh and kiss and not long pull away enough for Percy to ask about the taste of blood on his lips. He could wake up, always, alone.

It was better having him this way than not at all.

“We both deserve our sleep, darling.” Percy still wouldn’t meet his eyes. He stood up, suddenly enough that Monty tilted over into the place he’d been sitting. “I see you’ve started packing. I didn’t realize— I didn’t know school started so soon for you.” His back was to Monty, but Monty could see the tense square of his shoulders as he looked down at the suitcase flung open on the floor.

Stepping over to where Percy was, not trying to force eye contact where it clearly was unwanted: “Still a week or so but— summer goes fast, doesn’t it?”

“This one especially.”

The air hung heavy with the question neither of them were willing to ask. Or, Monty wasn’t willing, at the least. He couldn’t tell if it bode well that Percy wasn’t asking either.

“Perce, will we still—” he stopped himself at the look of terror in Percy’s eyes, brought out by just four words. He couldn’t finish it. “Will we—” He _couldn’t_. “We have the same holiday break, right?”

Percy looked away again. “Always do, Monty.”

“I suppose— I mean, we’ll see each other then, right? And again in Spring, and then— and then the Tour!” He could feel the excitement fake and leaden on his tongue. His smile was too wide. But did it even matter, when Percy wouldn’t look at him?

“’Course, Monty.” Percy turned back to the door. “I should head home.”

“Want me to walk you out?”

“I can find my own way.”

Of course he could.

Monty watched him as he disappeared out the door, staring at the empty frame for a moment, another, before letting out the breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding.

He collapsed back onto the bed, and indulged himself in imagining the sheets were warm.

* * *

_Maybe it was better— Monty mused, some fall afternoon— that they were parted for the school year._

_Because Percy was a constant, as unchanging as the stars were bright. He was a promise. In letters sent from miles and miles away, he could stay that way, immortalized in ink and friendship. The Percy Monty had known during the summer, the one who’d press his mouth to Monty’s jawline, who’d slip long fingers beneath the edge of Monty’s shirt, who would stand tall above him and make Monty lean up for the kiss, he was a variable. He belonged to the warmth and the summerhouse and the air of ‘no-consequences’ that always seemed to blow in on long, hot days. If Monty had seen Percy in person, once the air was cool… he couldn’t know which Percy he’d be getting. He couldn’t even know which one he wanted._

_The constant of friendship, or the unpredictable rush of new._

_But it didn’t matter, because they were apart and the divide was there. And Monty, he knew, was so very lucky to have either. He was lucky to receive letters with nothing but their usual subtle flirting and anecdotes besides. He was luckier still to receive those letters with contents of the more… explicit nature._

_They were few and far between, but made up for it by being the best goddamn things Monty had ever read. Percy had been the one to initiate them, mentioning offhand in a letter, “And the food, Monty— god, you’d be begging on your knees. (And I know what a sight that is.)” It grew from there until they would fill entire letters with nothing but the erotic, and send them in the offbeat between a few, far more tame, letters._

_So, it really was better like this. A sharp divide between the Percy that cared about him as a friend and the one who detailed long, lovely descriptions of nights that existed only in their writings. No confusion, and no muddling, and no worrying about what Percy would be like in person, without the shield of paper and ink. And it was enough, until _

* * *

Monty was home for winter break, and his arms were around Percy. 

His arms were around Percy and his back was against the wall and Percy’s knee was lodged between his legs and Percy was _kissing_ him— really kissing him— and God, _nothing _was a substitute for this. 

“Christ, I’ve missed you,” Percy murmured, face buried in the Monty’s shoulder.

Monty let laugh out a laugh that morphed halfway through into a gasp, as Percy nipped at the skin of his neck. “Same here, Perce.” And he pulled Percy back against him.

The past few hours had been heavy with unsaid words, everything from the moment he arrived on Percy’s doorstep to dinner with his family to the walk down the hall to Percy’s room seeming ready to burst with the tension of not knowing. But the moment Monty had closed the bedroom door behind them, Percy was kissing him.

Percy pulled on the cravat around Monty’s neck, lightly, and Monty opened his eyes long enough to see Percy tilt his head towards the bedframe. Monty couldn’t nod fast enough. They shuffled, the two of them pressed together, to the bed, never moving far enough that they couldn’t lean in to kiss in the middle of a step. Monty tripped over Percy’s feet, and nearly fell before he felt arms tighten around his chest, hauling him back up so they were forehead to forehead. Percy was barely holding back his laughter, and Monty was hardly better with restraint. He burst out, in loud peals of laughter until he heard Percy join in. And this— Monty and Percy, laughing together, interrupting intimacy for a moment of pure joy in the presence of the other— this was it. This was_ right_.

Still laughing, Monty pulled Percy back until he was against the bedframe, then fell back, letting Percy collapse on top of him. The winter chill had claimed the house, but Percy was warm, still, even in the coldest season. He brought with him the summer. Everything from those months, things done and said and the heat of the air and the taste of wine and the stars glimmering in a black sky were there in the weight of Percy’s chest against his. 

“Monty, love, do you—” Percy couldn’t finish before Monty reached up to kiss him again. Percy pushed him away. His fingertips were a gentle force, pressing into Monty’s collarbone where it showed through his unbuttoned shirt. He then resettled his hands on either side of Monty, so he was on his hands and knees above him. “Darling, do you want to— this is lovely, but do you want—” He moved his hand to Monty’s knee, then traced it up the inside of his thigh. “—to go a bit farther?”

The ‘yes’ was on the tip of Monty’s tongue from the moment he realized what Percy was asking, but something held it back. It wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to. He wanted it _desperately_, more than there were words to describe it, but… The sheets beneath him were so cold. Warm only in the space where Percy laid his hands. And Monty couldn’t— he _couldn’t_—

Because mouths and hands and flirting and wrinkled clothing were all of one sort. Sexual as it may all be, it wasn’t… Monty could write it all away as being physical, tell himself he didn’t care, he didn’t mind waking up alone because he _knew_ it wasn’t anything more than helping-out-a-friend. But if they— if Percy made love to him, pinned him to the bed and made warmth from the cold, held Monty against him like he was something precious… And then Monty had to wake up in cold sheets, alone, forgotten?

He didn’t think he could survive it.

He just stayed still, mouth open and unable to form words, staring at Percy. Percy, who finally seemed to finally notice the lack of response and sat straight up, eyes wide. “We don’t have to! Of course, obviously, I don’t want to pressure you, Monty.”

“It isn’t that, Perce, I—”

“Oh, god,” Percy said, turning over so his legs were no longer on either side of Monty’s lap. “I didn’t even ask before— I shouldn’t have presumed— are we still even doing this?”

“Percy,” Monty started, before realizing he had no idea how to follow it. The truth? God, no. He’d thrown away that chance six months ago on a summer lawn. A ‘yes’? He couldn’t do that, he knew why he couldn’t do that. So he just repeated, softer and slower, “Percy.”

“I just thought… all the letters… But if there’s someone else, or something wrong, we don’t— Just, tell me Monty. Please.”

“I don’t want to wake up alone,” Monty said. It was half a whisper, so soft that if there had been any sound other than their breathing, it would’ve been lost in the cool air. But, though Monty had brought his hands up to cover his eyes, he could see through the cracks as Percy straightened up, turned to look at him. “I can’t— I can’t keep waking up alone.”

“What?”

Monty was glad for the relative darkness of the room. Percy couldn’t see the flush of his face as he forced out the words. “You’re always gone, Perce. Either you leave before I fall asleep or I drift off next to you and wake up in cold sheets and you, halfway across the room. I hate it, Percy. I can’t stand it.” It felt too true, too much, but Monty’s eyes were closed and covered and it was easy to pretend, almost, that he was just saying this to an empty room. Easier still, when Percy didn’t respond.

A beat passed. And another. Then, quietly, half-choked up: “You never said anything.”

“Oh, and look like the fool, the desperate boy who wants more than he has? Appealing.”

“Monty—”

“It isn’t just you, Perce!” He sat up, so he could look at Percy, finally. “Everyone— no one stays. No one stays the night. Else I’m the one leaving, which I suppose makes this all hypocrisy but those aren’t like this. When they’re just strangers, done with me by the first light it— it hurts, it doesn’t feel good. But it isn’t unexpected. But with you…” He crossed his arms over his chest, a weak defence of a vulnerable area. “I thought it would be different.”

“I’m sorry, Monty, I didn’t know.”

“God, don’t apologize. I don’t— just don’t.” He sighed. “I get it. It’s different. The daylight’s for friendship and the night is for— whatever else we do. You don’t want to blur the line. But you used to stay the night with me. When we were friends and didn’t add anything onto it. And I think, Percy, that I’d take that over this. Good, honest friendship and knowing that you aren’t ashamed to be in the same bed as me, over empty sex and cold sheets.”

Percy opened his mouth, then closed it, lips pursed. His eyes shifted to the side in time with the dark storm clouds creeping over the stars outside the window. “I…” He looked back at Monty. “Empty?”

“What?”

“You said ‘empty sex’. Is it?”

The roof of Monty’s mouth felt suddenly very dry. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Do you want to wake up next to _someone_,” Percy reached out and covered Monty’s hand with his own. “Or do you want to wake up next to _me_?”

“Percy—” Monty looked down at their hands. Between the darkness and the moisture building in his eyes, the two almost blurred together. “Perce, I can’t answer that.”

“Darling.” There was a gentleness to his voice, present without pressure, like the soft glow just around stars, before their light gave way to the sky. Monty could never hide from that light.

“You.” It fell from his mouth, a stilted syllable not fit for the air. It came out choked, like there was something stuck in the back of Monty’s throat as he tried to speak.

The roof of his mouth tasted like wine.

Percy curled his fingers around Monty’s hand. Warm, so warm. “You love me?”

“Yes.” He pulled his hand from Percy’s, buried his face in his palms and tried to ignore the brush of wet eyelashes against the skin. He was crying. Ridiculous. “Christ.” He laughed, the sound faltering over itself. “Surprised you didn’t get that already. I thought you were supposed to be the clever one.” Percy didn’t say anything. The silence rang. “Dammit, Perce, say something.”

“I… I love you, too.”

Monty felt his heart seize in his chest, but didn’t let it last. He knew what things were real. He knew what things were real, and he knew what things were born out of strong friendship and stronger wine, things meant to be forgotten by sunrise. Most of all, he knew appeasement. “I didn’t mean _that_.”

“Monty, it’s true.”

“You don’t have to love me to sleep with me,” Monty clarified. He pulled his hands from his face and set them in his lap. He didn’t look at Percy. “If it doesn’t bother you, how I feel, it won’t bother me that you don’t. Just don’t leave me, first thing, and I will— it will be fine. But _don’t_, don’t lie for me. It’s worse.”

“I wouldn’t lie about this.” Percy grabbed at Monty’s hands again, this time taking them in both of his. It should’ve been a gesture of force. It felt like one of protection. “Monty, darling, you know I wouldn’t.”

“You said you didn’t.” He was trying to breathe, free his lungs of their air, but they grew heavier with every breath. It felt like they were being filled up. Like thick, summer-warmed wine drowning him from the inside out. “That first night, I asked you what it meant and you said it meant nothing.”

“So did you!” There was a rise to his words, cut off in the last second. It was a teary end. Monty met his eyes in the dark. “You were the one who called it meaningless. I wanted— Monty, of course I wanted it to be real. Of course I love you. I just couldn’t— you mentioned the desperate fool wanting more than what he can have? That was me, darling.” There was no hesitation in his words. No trace of dishonesty, and just the slightest twinge of fear. Percy wasn’t cruel. He wouldn’t lie about this.

“I suppose,” Monty said, cautious, bringing one hand up to curl around the side of Percy’s neck. He never broke eye contact. “That maybe we both thought that of ourselves?”

“It could never be you,” Percy promised, just beginning to smile. “Monty, there is nothing you can’t have from me. Nothing in my power to give that isn’t already yours.” The words carried a warmth that spread into Monty’s chest, filling it with that same, weightless sunlight that had always been the mark of his love for Percy. He inhaled, a long, greedy thing. And he could breathe easy.

“Percy, don’t think for a moment that I wouldn’t give the same to you.” Percy’s hands had moved to the side of his face, thumbs trailing over his cheeks. “I suppose one part of it was right, at least. We’re definitely both fools.”

“Maybe so, darling.”

“Tell me it again.”

“What?”

“You said—” Monty leaned in, so his mouth was hovered over the corner of Percy’s lips. “You said I could have anything of you. Tell me you love me again, please.”

Monty could feel the smile against his mouth. “I love you.” Then Percy kissed him, light and quick. “I love you, Monty. My darling. With all that I am, I love you.”

Monty wrapped his arms around Percy’s shoulders and let himself collapse onto him, burying his face in his shoulder and letting himself be encompassed by warmth. “God, Perce, I love you too.” Percy hummed, contented, and rubbed small circles on Monty’s back. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

“Don’t apologize, love.” Monty felt the press of lips against the top of his head. “No time for that.”

Monty leaned back and took Percy’s face in his hands. “You’re right there, darling. There are much better uses of our time.” Monty pressed a long, gentle kiss to Percy’s mouth. He broke it off, but left his lips a breath from Percy’s, and looked him in the eye. “Does that offer from before still stand?”

Monty felt the grin before he saw it, but wasn’t given enough time to appreciate it before Percy’s hand was on the back of his neck, pulling Monty fully against him. Closer, it felt, than Monty had ever been to another person. Close, so close, like this was what they were meant to be. Like they never should have been parted to begin with.

Without letting an inch separate them, Monty grabbed onto Percy’s shirt, and brought the two of them down against the mattress.

* * *

_It ended, as it had begun, with warmth._

_The word ‘end’ is misleading, though. Really, it was more of a beginning. From here, the two of them grew and changed and went on grand adventures and lost each other and found each other, again and again and always. _

_But that wasn’t quite yet._

_For now, there was an ending to the trouble; to the mistrusts and miscommunications and the pain they caused. That ending, it came in the form of a sunrise. Monty awoke the following morning with Percy’s arm was slung around his waist, head nestled in the crook of his neck, curls brushing the side of his face._

_And never had Monty been so warm._

**Author's Note:**

> I constantly vacillate between wanting to write long, dialogue-heavy, dramatic scenes, and wanting to write short, tell-don't-show, poetic prose pieces. i couldn't choose one for this, so yall get both.
> 
> I've just always wondered what it'd be like, if they'd kissed when they were a bit younger, when Percy may have been a bit more desperate, a bit more likely to continue going along with it even after Monty tripped over himself and said it didn't mean anything. also, i really fucking wanted to write canon-era friends with benefits. im a trope person.
> 
> all that said, thank you so much for reading!! I really hoped you liked it, and if you did, please leave a kudos or a comment letting me know what you thought! Thank you again and have a lovely day!!


End file.
